


Learning How To Ask

by CaptainLordAuditor



Series: New Americana [7]
Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Missing Scene, editted for a timeline discrepency that bothers nobody but me, jewish newsies, katherine centric, stretching the definitions of both words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 19:46:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16839190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainLordAuditor/pseuds/CaptainLordAuditor
Summary: Despite the busy streets, there was something missing; it was as if someone had rearranged her jewelry box.





	Learning How To Ask

**Author's Note:**

> Edited 12/15/2018 because GODDAMNIT this takes place on July 18th and July 18th of 1899 was a Tuesday, not a Friday. That's fixed now bye

Tuesday morning in Lower East Side meant busy streets, filled with women out preparing fordinner, meant Katherine blended in in her shirtwaist as she looked for - for what she was looking for. She didn’t know how exactly she’d find it, what it would look like - churches had crosses and stained glass, would this be similar? All the signs were in Yiddish; she spoke perhaps two words of it (learned from the secretaries and janitors, never heard at home) and read nothing. She couldn’t even sound out the blocky alphabet it used. That was why she was here in the first place.

Asking someone would surely mark her apart as an outsider, someone who didn’t belong. She thought about doing it anyway, maybe one of the peddler children on the corner that were usually present in all areas of the city, but she saw fewer than usual here. The few she saw were mostly small boys under ten or so, shouting in Yiddish, selling items labeled in the same. Katherine knew from experience that they’d probably have older, tougher brothers waiting just out of sight, and what she didn’t know was if any of them knew English well enough to help.

Despite the busy streets, there was something missing; it was as if someone had rearranged her jewelry box, and it took Katherine a few blocks to realise what it was. All the peddlers she’d seen so far were speaking Yiddish. That made sense, but the newsboys in particular caught her eye. Every paper they held up was in Yiddish, too.

The Sun didn’t do well here, but last time she’d been here there had been a good mix of the Journal, the World, and the Trib, along with the local Jewish newspapers. Today she saw the occasional Trib, and no Journals or Worlds in two hours of walking. Why?

It was close to nine when she got herself unlost and found the deli, and her answer, though not what she’d gone looking for in the first place. The place was filled with boys of the peddling persuasion, maybe bootblacks, or peanut sellers, but most of them carried the canvas bags sometimes worn by newsboys. They bounced and pushed, shoving, gesturing, and yelling in an argument, or else sat, tucked in on themselves, not looking at the others. A mix of Yiddish, Italian and English spilled out the open door, one of them in a voice she recognized.

(“I work for the World,” he’d said. Of course he did.)

Over and over, there was one word in English she caught, spoken with an aura of fear around it: _Brooklyn._

Katherine squared her shoulders, and walked in.


End file.
